


silent night.

by outpastthemoat



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Angst, Christmas, Holiday, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-12-13
Updated: 2017-12-13
Packaged: 2019-02-14 10:59:00
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,036
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13006356
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/outpastthemoat/pseuds/outpastthemoat
Summary: Dean always has to change the station whenever most Christmas songs start playing, the songs that are too jangly and bright, they pop out at him and rattle him up: Jingle Bells, Rockin’ Around the Christmas Tree, Sleigh Ride.  They are jarring against the dried blood on the hem of his coat sleeve, against the dirty snow on his boots and frozen mud and ice melting on the floorboard of the Impala.  Like when he walks into a Wal-mart and right into the holiday displays, all gold and silver and glitter, all shiny new chrome electronics.  It’s all too bright.  Like glancing at the sun reflected off the snow.  It’s hard to look at, so he looks away.  He walks past the store displays with glass ornaments and gingerbread houses and thinks about putting on sunglasses, something to make it easier for him.





	silent night.

It’s that same old Christmas carol his mother always sang.  Must be close to Christmas, now.  The days pass and he and Castiel and Sam slide through another town and most holidays always seem to escape them, but now Christmas has caught up.  He means to tell Sam to turn off the radio but Sam isn’t listening, opens his mouth to say so but Sam must not hear him, so Dean closes his eyes and lets it go on playing for a minute.

Dean always has to change the station whenever most Christmas songs start playing, the songs that are too jangly and bright, they pop out at him and rattle him up: Jingle Bells, Rockin’ Around the Christmas Tree, Sleigh Ride.  They are jarring against the dried blood on the hem of his coat sleeve, against the dirty snow on his boots and frozen mud and ice melting on the floorboard of the Impala.  Like when he walks into a Wal-mart and right into the holiday displays, all gold and silver and glitter, all shiny new chrome electronics.  It’s all too bright.  Like glancing at the sun reflected off the snow.  It’s hard to look at, so he looks away.  He walks past the store displays with glass ornaments and gingerbread houses and thinks about putting on sunglasses, something to make it easier for him.  

Sam never did look away, even when they were kids.  He always wanted to look, he’d beg Dean please, please, just for a minute.  Can’t we go see?  Sam wanted to see it all, go down every Christmas aisle.  For a while, when he was smaller, Sam had really thought that Christmas would happen for them, just like it did for the families he saw on tv.  Sam had really thought that someone would come and bring them presents, cook a Christmas ham, bake iced gingerbread cookies.  Dean knew better.  He knew not to rush to the toy department, to open the JC Penney catalog and start circling items with dad’s yellow highlighter.  It must not have always been that way, but he can’t really remember Christmases from before.  Or maybe it’s like the sunglasses: maybe it hurts too much to think about those Christmases, so he just can’t, not unless there’s something to shield him a little.  Like a shot or two, or a pair of broken ribs: sometimes it’s easier to remember through a little pain, like now; he can think about his mother’s long fingers hanging a small glass bird on a branch on their tree, he can hear her voice - a little off key - murmuring  _ holy infant, so tender and mild _ , but only through this deep red ache, as he bleeds out all over Castiel’s coat, red like looking at the sun with your eyes closed.

There are some memories that can only be accessed through a haze of pain. Like remembering running his hands through the folds of white silk of his mother’s wedding dress hanging at the back of her closet.  Like remember how Castiel had closed his eyes and turned his face up towards Dean the first time he had been kissed.   

Dean can’t listen to most Christmas songs, they don’t have anything to do with him.  They make him want.  Make him hungry: All I Want For Christmas Is You, It’s Not Christmas Without You, I’ll Be Home For Christmas.  Too many songs stir him up, make him crave real silverware on the table or logs cracking in a fireplace or family pictures in frames on the walls of a house he doesn’t live in anymore, you listen to too many Bing Crosby holiday hits and you start feeling an itch to go to a department store and buy tablecloths with poinsettia patterns and white porcelain place settings, anything to make him feel like he had when he was just a small kid, too little to know that the cranberry sauce and string lights and and presents under the tree wouldn’t last forever.

About the only song he has any use for is this one, the one he’s listening to right now.  It doesn’t make him want.  Doesn’t make him think of glass ornaments or tinsel or wrapping paper, it’s not too shiny, not too bright.  Doesn’t quite make him hurt right  _ here _ , deep down inside his chest, the way other songs do.  It just makes him listen to the quiet.  It just makes him aware of the here and now, inside this car: here he is, in the backseat of an old family car, looking up at the roof and hearing Sam swearing under his breath as he hits another red light.  

The heater is working, must be, it’s warm in here.  In the here and now there is Castiel, he knows, these warm arms around Dean must be his, the warm breath on his face must be his too.  This is good.  Dean thinks that this is good, even if it isn’t merry and bright, even if what this is is worn and old and car doors that stick a bit and coats with holes in the pockets.  This is what he has, and it is good: he has two people, he has this car that carries them all, and maybe, he is thinking, that he is closer to having what those first-Christmas folks had had.  No string lights or down quilts or fireplaces.  Nothing shiny.  Nothing new.  Just each other and a place to rest.   

Dean mouths the words to the song and sings to himself, I am still alive.  I am still alive, the words get caught in his chest and settle in, become the beat of his heart.  He’s still alive.  He can’t think too far ahead, can’t think about how every moment might be the last time they’ll be like this, a family of three tired people in a tired old car.  He forces his mind back to the here and now.  He’s still alive, holy night, he’s still alive, all is bright.  He’s got this, and he knows it’s a gift, this moment.  The people he loves and a place to rest.  Even if it’s only for a little while longer.  Sleep in heavenly peace.


End file.
